Hi. Sorry for the delay in responding, and thanks everyone for your responses. I'm no spring chicken with internet scams. I did the obvious thing anyone would do ahead of knowing this board even existed. I googled 'bitcoin casinos'. And beyond the likely paid promo sites that i had to wade through, i found this post on this forum, which to date has seen only my recent reply as the only negative comment about them.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=462479.0As you will see, i also posted a reply to the thread above.
I didn't know there was a rating system in place here. I have learned plenty about how to ID more legit sites since this experience, but to those that snicker or think its another example of a fool and his money parting, I based my decision partly on any lack of negative feedback from this board, following the site promoting themselves in the thread above.
Later, when searching for other posts about bitbet.com being a scam, It's a little noisy, because there's lots of people talking about bitbet.
US, and you see all kinds of complaints and support.